Guitars and FX you love the sound of but can't get on with

Fez

Sg's for me I love the look and the sound but can't get on with playing them.

ICBM

TeleMaster said:

I find I just can't be heard in the band mix when I use positions 2 & 4, and when I use the bridge to cut through my band tell me that I'm too brittle for them. 

I think I might change pickups. 

That’s why I mostly use the middle pickup on a standard Strat.

Higher-output pickups in the neck and bridge fixed the problem.

cm01

TeleMaster said:

I find I just can't be heard in the band mix when I use positions 2 & 4, and when I use the bridge to cut through my band tell me that I'm too brittle for them. 

I think I might change pickups. 

I’ve always found the same with strats... the strat I picked up on here recently with an EMG Vince Gill set is brilliant - with the mid boost you can dial in a really wide range of tones - with it full on it’s super fat and thick sounding - I’m really impressed!

Dominic

Marshall Amps
 KOT pedals
 Knaggs guitars

Pabcrane

Pitch shifters for me.

And the Parker Fly had a really twitchy Wang bar which, coming from a Jazzmaster & a B6, I struggled with!

TTBZ

Fender guitars in general. Like the idea of them (cheap, well designed and sturdy) but the reality is they play like shit to me compared to Gibson and PRS. I have pretty small hands and 25.5" feels too spread out and I'm not into guitars with "fight". Also I can't get normal singlecoils to work for me unless they're voiced very mid-heavy so they're more like P90s. 

I love everything about a Les Paul apart from playing them stood up/on a strap - mainly down to that hard edge digging into the picking forearm. I used to be a LP-only player so I'm sure it's something I'd get used to again if I had one. My ideal guitar would be the comfort of an SG with a better top strap button position and the tone and sustain of a Les Paul.

Lestratcaster

SG’s. Just don’t like how they play or feel. So when it comes to playing AC/DC stuff I’ll  have to use my Les Paul.
Blackstar amps too for high gain. Not got the punch or tightness for me.

rze99

Bought a Too treble Boost for my Voxac 30. Classic set up. Sounded dreadful. Really harsh and nasty. Great for nasty punk stuff but I hated it. It went back full refund. 

ICBM

Not a guitar or effect, but I can't get on with Fender Tweed Deluxes. I'm a big Neil Young fan and I like Richard Thompson and some other notable users, but I just can't quite get a sound I love out of them - I can get them sounding not bad, but there's always something slightly wrong about it for me and I end up fiddling with the controls the whole time.

Grumpyrocker

I began playing in 1990 but in a bit of a bubble of my own - I've played live occasionally, been in recording bands with friends, jammed a lot - but managed to remain oblivious to many things for decades. Never really noticed different necks - or the effects of them, bolted verses set, scale length, valves vs solid state etc. I just bought stuff, played it.

That being said done lots of playing at home over lockdown and discovered I didn't like playing my Les Paul at all. When trying to play chuggy metal I was all over the place. And then when playing my Schecter C6-Pro I had similar feels trying to play bluesy classic rock. I'm not a great player, but surely I couldn't be this completely shit?

And I've come to realise that scale length really does affect me a lot. I can play fairly quick chuggy metal riffing on my Schecter which is a Strat scale length. But the bluesy stuff works much better on the Les Paul, where the faster chucggy gallop stuff eludes me. 

I've known for a little while now I don't really get on with trem systems - either class Strat kind of Floyd Rose locking types. I don't use them on the guitars I have with them - PRS SE Custom 22 / Ibanez SAS360FM - and I'd rather they weren't there. They just seem to add cost and complexity and get in the way. I don't get on with them at all. And it's a shame as a lot of the more metal style guitars I like are only available with trems. Yet I love trem tricks played by other people.

Oh single coils. Horrid scratchy things. Can't get any decent sound out of them myself. That said my Schecter has the most wonderful coil taps that really do sound like single coils without the nastiness that occurs when I play them. And then I love plenty of Strat players - Gilmour, Blackmore etc.

Fez

Also the Trex replay delay great sound but rubbish ergonomics.

TeleMaster

ICBM said:

TeleMaster said:

I find I just can't be heard in the band mix when I use positions 2 & 4, and when I use the bridge to cut through my band tell me that I'm too brittle for them. 

I think I might change pickups. 

That’s why I mostly use the middle pickup on a standard Strat.

Higher-output pickups in the neck and bridge fixed the problem.

Yea that's what I was thinking of doing. I missed out on some well priced vintage styled high output bareknuckle pickups the other day, although I think the seller may have been the highest bidder so we shall see.

I do have a 64 Strat and it's a similar story. 

Whitecat

Rickenbackers. 

riffpowers

Fender amps. I just can’t get them to sound any good . 

HandwrittenHero

riffpowers said:

Fender amps. I just can’t get them to sound any good . 

Same. I make an exception for tweed champs (kinda hard to screw that one up), but cleaner fender amps just do not like me.

shaunm

Les Pauls and Tele’s for me are really hard work. I just don’t know what to play when i hold one. Nothing comes naturally and I default to trying to sound like Jimmy Page. Also, LP’s sound horrible with fuzzface pedals and modulation and I love using both of those. Thank god for strats. 

Amp wise I wouldn’t say there are any that I really can’t get on with but I agree with @ICBM about Tweed Deluxe amps. On paper I should love them but I find them really restrictive. In a band situation they have one sound and that shouty mid range. 

HAL9000

The ergonomic nightmare that is the Les Paul. Somehow always feels cramped, and nothing is quite where it should be.

Compressors.

lysander

Les Pauls and actually most guitars with a tuneomatic bridge. I find having the strings so far away from the body uncomfortable.
And on Les Pauls just about everything is uncomfortable  

Fuengi

Tremolo. 

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

The ergonomic nightmare that is the Les Paul. Somehow always feels cramped, and nothing is quite where it should be.

Compressors.

lysander said:

Les Pauls and actually most guitars with a tuneomatic bridge. I find having the strings so far away from the body uncomfortable.
And on Les Pauls just about everything is uncomfortable  

Oddly given all the comments so far, I get on fine with Les Pauls - unless the neck angle is too steep, which many are, and which also makes the bridge too high.

The Gibsons I really can’t get on with are SGs, Firebirds and 335s - all too long and the necks are too far to the left.

I can’t use compressors either, although I like the sound they make.